“Well, I can't wait to see what all this `mall' has to offer,” Miroku piped up, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. A girl in a miniskirt walked past with a few of her friends. Sango rolled her eyes and slapped his arm. He shot her an innocent look. “Something the matter, Sango, my sweet?”

She shrugged off the arm Miroku tried to sling over her shoulders. “Keep your distance, Monk.”

Miroku clutched his chest as though Sango had deeply wounded him. “Sango! You always think the worst of me!”

The girls with Shippou in tow headed inside, leaving the guys to follow behind. Miroku sighed dramatically as another group of short skirted girls passed. InuYasha shoved him forward through the doors after Kagome and Sango.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Trying not to roll her eyes at the surly hanyou who shook his head slowly as she held up a pair of jeans for his perusal, Kagome sighed and dropped them back onto the neatly folded stack on the display table. “You could try to fit in a little, couldn't you?” she asked, careful to keep her tone pleasant.

“I'll try,” he shot back, “when you stop trying to force me into those things.”

“What, exactly, don't you like about these?”

He made a face. “They're too tight.”

She sighed again. “That's why you have to try them on. If you get the right size, they won't be too tight.”

“How's this, Kagome?”

Stabbing InuYasha with a last pointed look, Kagome turned around and gaped at Miroku. Wearing very tight black jeans and a purple silk shirt, he looked every bit like a contemporary version of his old self.

She pointed at Miroku then turned back to face InuYasha again. “See? Clothes make the man, I tell you!”

“Kagome,” he started in his normal brusque tone.

Snatching up a pair of loose fit jeans, Kagome held them up to InuYasha's waist. “Just try them on.”

He didn't look like he was going to do it. But after glowering at Kagome for a good minute as she reverted to the age-old women's ploy of batting her eyelashes at him, he snatched the jeans out of her hand and stomped off toward the dressing room. Miroku watched him go with a hidden smile then realized that InuYasha would need a different shirt, as well. He grabbed a one off the rack that Kagome couldn't see and headed back into the dressing room again after grinning mischievously.

InuYasha's irritated voice drifted out to her. “What the fuck? No!”

“Come on, InuYasha. That sweatshirt needs to be burned. You've worn it ever since we came out of the well days ago.”

“No.”

Miroku's next words were too low for Kagome to hear, but a few minutes later, the monk reemerged with a wide smile.

“What did you take him?” Kagome asked, unsure she wanted an answer.

“Miroku! Damn it, what the hell do I do with this?”

The monk sighed and headed back toward the dressing room again.

“Kagome! Sango picked out my clothes! You want to see them?”

Turning just in time to catch Shippou in her arms, Kagome giggled at his show of happiness. “What did you get?”

Sango smiled. “Children's clothes are adorable in this era, Kagome! So many colors and fabrics . . .” She trailed off, her mouth falling open, eyes bulging out as she stared past Kagome in the direction of the dressing room. Kagome turned to look. Miroku had just come out but was turned back obviously trying to muscle InuYasha out of the dressing room.

“I feel fucking stupid,” InuYasha growled.

“Come out, InuYasha. I'll bet Kagome won't think that, at all.”

“I swear, Monk, if anyone laughs, I'll Wind Scar your ass from here back to the Warring States Era.”

With one last tug, InuYasha stepped out of the dressing room, his face bright red. Kagome gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. Her reaction wasn't much different from Sango's, and Shippou stared from one girl to the other and back again.

“Inu . . . InuYasha?” she asked. He was the same InuYasha she knew, but he looked entirely different. The jeans fit him perfectly, but the white blouse that Miroku had obviously had to convince him to try on reminded her of his undershirt, the one he wore under the fire rat haori. Over that, though, was a black leather jacket. Easily large enough for him to have decent mobility, it fit his personality perfectly and made his hair that much more startling in comparison. Sure, more than once she'd visualized what he'd look like in more modern clothes. But seeing him standing there in those same clothes . . . Kagome swallowed hard.

When he didn't answer, she glanced up at his face. Embarrassed color had engulfed his features. “InuYasha?”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer as Miroku chuckled and headed over toward Sango.“There,” he hissed in her ear.

“`There', where?”

“What the hell do you mean, `there', where? There!”

It finally dawned on her, what InuYasha was trying to tell her, and she flushed, jerking away from him and stepping back until she bumped the display table behind her. Forcing herself to objectively stare at the hanyou, Kagome had to clear her throat a few times before she managed to say, “They look roomy enough.”

His glower darkened. “They're not.”

Suspicion dawned on her, and she pinned InuYasha with a narrowed gaze. “Are you just being fussy?”

“Feh!” he snorted. “No, damn it, do you want to see?”

Kagome's eyes widened even more. She hadn't thought she could flush any darker. She was wrong. The shade of her skin, though, was nothing in comparison to that on InuYasha's face as he realized exactly what he'd said, and the implications of it. He turned to stomp back into the dressing room. Kagome ran forward and stopped him. “You look really nice, InuYasha. Please?”

He relented. “How are you paying for all this?” he asked as she dragged him back toward the others.

She shrugged. “I've been saving money for a long time,” she explained as she tore the tags off his clothes and headed for the cashier to pay for them. `My college fund.' She flinched. Hopefully her mother would understand. After all, her friends really did need clothes . . . .

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A/N:

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters inOut of Time): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.